I'm in Chicago today and tomorrow for Web Content Conference 2009 and Day 1 is a wrap. After such a great experience participating in BarCamp Boston several weeks ago, I was interested to return to a more traditionally formatted conference for comparison. Essentially, BarCamp's collaborative round-table style is replaced with considerably higher quality presentations from impressive speakers who really know their stuff. Almost across the board, the presentations have exceeded my expectations. Here's a quick account of the sessions I've attended. Most of these presentations should be up on slide share by the end of the conference, and I'll link to that in my post tomorrow.

Beyond Publishing: Exploring What We Are Really Doing With Web Content - Joe Gollner

Joe is a 20 year industry veteran and it showed in his intriguing historical review of how we got to where we are in content reuse. Starting way back at paper (remember paper?) and moving forward to the present day, he showed that content reuse is, in many ways, what drove and what resulted from the publishing advancements of the last hundred years. He wrapped it up with a few case studies showing highly complex content reuse projects he has been involved with.

Personalization: A Multi-Dimensional Approach - Ann Rockley

Ann gave a compelling argument for combining XML databases and XQuery as a foundation for (or layer on top of) content management to enable access across disparate data sources and formats within and among organizations. Again, detailed real world case studies show the value and application of these technologies with Rockley's impressive client base.

10 Web 2.0 Marketing Techniques You Can Use To Attract New Prospects and Extend Your Reach - Scott Abel

I've worked with Scott on some EditMe professional services projects and he's the reason I'm here. After seeing him speak, it's clear he's the real deal. Probably one of the most sought-after individuals at the conference, Scott was an incredibly entertaining, engaging and informative speaker. I consider myself fairly savvy about Web 2.0 marketing, but Scott's presentation managed to teach me about several new tools and ideas I wasn't aware of previously.

Marketing Survival Strategies for the Attention(less) Economy - Jeremy Epstein

Jeremy is a marketing guru who worked in the trenches at Microsoft. He gave a rousing and inspirational talk on what might be considered marketing basics, but in a way and with examples that really drove it home and inspired action in the audience. His example of Guy Kawasaki (whom only about a third of the audience knew by name) driving the same amount of traffic to his web site as a write-up in the New York Times really drove home the idea that getting in with the right individual and mean a lot, and you can't always predict what individual that might be.

Instant Brand Messaging: Writing To Be Clicked - Lisa Calhoun

Lisa runs a writing consultancy and gave a great review of writing for social media. She focused on identifying whether you should, strategies for segmenting audiences within various social media, and how to craft a social media "face" for an organization.

The New “No Rules” Of Online Marketing: How Social Media and Content Marketing Changes Everything You Know - And Nothing You Do - Robert Rose

The VP of Marketing and Strategy for CrownPeak looked at how the early stage of the new social media marketing channel allows marketers to define innovation and drive the rules for marketing that will become the rules for the next decade or so. He compares the development of the social media channel to the development of radio, using the creation of soap operas as a new advertising model as an example.